MIDNAPORE(WEST BENGAL): West Bengal and Jharkhand police have decided to get rid of the barrier of jurisdiction in adjoining Maoist-hit areas to take faster action against the Naxalites.

In the Maoist affected belt of six districts including three of Kolhan range of Jharkhand and three districts of West Bengal, policemen can now move freely into each other’s territory, West Midnapore Superintendent of Police R Rajsekharan, who attended the meeting said on Friday.

After launching an attack in one state, Maoist ultras usually flee to another through the forest covered border and the police fail to chase them due to the jurisdiction barrier.

But now, if a police station of West Bengal has some information on a Maoist activity, it could directly tip-off the respective police station in Jharkhand instead of informing Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG), Rajsekharan said.

The existing rule was that only a DIG level officer could pass on such information to another DIG level officer. But, by the time the information reaches from a police station to the DIG’s office of one state and from the DIG’s office to the police station concerned in the other, precious time gets lost and the ultras escape easily, police sources said.

The new system would reduce the time gap significantly, the sources said after the joint meeting of the DIG of Kolhan range of Jharkhand and his Midnapore range counterpart in West Bengal at Kharagpur in West Midnapore district on Friday.

Besides the DIGs, all superintendents of police, circle inspectors and officers-in-charge of the nine districts attended the meeting.

This is to inform you of the recent arrest of Prashant Rahi, a senior journalist of Uttarakhand, by the state police. Prashant was arrested on 15 th of this month in Dehradun and was allegedly charged of being a Maoist commander. The police secretly confined him for five days after which he was shown arrested from the forests of Hanspur Khatta on 21 st December. The police have charged him with various sections of IPC including 121, 121A, 124A, 153B, 120B. All the media carried the same version as stated by the police.

Just to give you a background, Prashant Rahi had been working in close association with the local people’s struggles in Uttarakhand since last 17 years. He has been a journalist by profession. Started his career from Himachal Times, moved on to The Statesman and worked many years covering people’s issues. He is a native of Maharashtra and pursued his education from BanarasHinduUniversity .

This incident is in continuance of the trend set by many innocent arrests in the last few months including that of Binayak Sen and some journalists in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh of targeting pro-people intellegentsia. The trend has become increasingly apparent in those parts of the country where people’s movement is strong.

We firmly believe that this state action is a part of the efforts being carried out by the various state governments to secure hefty amount of funds from the central government in the name of combating naxalism. For this, it becomes imperative for them to prove that the state is inflicted with this insurgency.

We, the undersigned, strongly condemn the arrest of Prashant Rahi and call upon all the concerned individuals, civil society organisations, journalist unions, writers unions, people’s movements and struggling groups to join hands in solidarity and support.

Rajendra Dhasmana (President, PUCL, Uttarakhand)

Manglesh Dabral (Poet and Journalist)

Pankaj Bisht (Editor, Samayantar)

Anand Swaroop Verma (Journalist and Human Rights Activist)

P.C. Tiwari (National Secretary, Indian Federation of Working Journalists)

Ranchi, Jan 6 (IANS) The Communist Party of India – Maoist is not an organisation banned in Jharkhand, leading to a headache for the police.

Jharkhand is one of the states badly hit by Maoist terror. But the absence of a ban means the police can rarely frame a strong case against the rebels.

In December 2007, the police caught two employees of Hindustan Construction Company (HCC) allegedly giving Rs.2 million in protection money to a CPI-Maoist rebel. The rebel was also caught. But all three were soon out on bail, which they would not have been if CPI-Maoist had been a banned organisation.

The state government had earlier banned the Maoist Coordination Committee (MCC) and People’s War Group (PWG). But they merged into CPI-Maoist in September 204, which is not banned.

Maoists are active in 18 of the 24 districts of the state. The rebels have killed nearly 1,000 people in the last seven years.

In 1980, a group of four Naxalites from Andhra Pradesh entered into southern tip of Maharashtra which is now part of the ‘Dandakarnya region’. They were followed by six other small groups who went to Bastar, which was with Madhya Pradesh then. The mission of the teams was to spread the Karimnagar/Adilabad Movement in those areas.

After nearly three decades of sustained and well-orchestrated squad work, the Maoists are now a force to reckon with and are holding a parallel government in the ‘liberated zones.’ They have a support base of over 1.5 lakh with their own People’s Liberation Guerilla Army and people’s militia. (Details from People’s March, January 2006 issue).

This piece of information is enough to send a chill down the spine of Kerala police because there are enough indications that the Maoists in the state are trying to replicate what they had done in Dandakaranya and many other parts of the country.

The fact that senior leaders of the CPI (Maoists) from Andhra — politburo member Sende Raja Mouli, Tamil Nadu state secretary Sunderamurthy and central committee member Malli Raja Reddy — had made vists to the state is enough reason for the police to press the panic button. Raja Reddy, who was picked up by the Andhra police from a hideout in Ernakulam district, had told the media that his mission was to build the party in Kerala and prepare its people for a revolution.

Kerala has the history of high-profile Naxalite activities which include annihilation of class enemies, attacks on police stations, taking officials as hostage and public trial of ‘corrupt’ government servants. Of late, their activities have been confined to more symbolic protests like attacking offices of the Asian Development Bank and retail outlets of big Indian companies.

The CPI-ML (Naxalbari) and the CPI (Maoist), the two Maoist outfits in Kerala, have a very limited presence in the state. There are only a handful of CPI (Maoists) activists in Kerala who were keeping a low profile till now. The outfit came under the scanner after the arrest of Raja Reddy. The arrest points to the fact that they have been engaged in underground activities of organising people from various sectors like migrant labourers, tribals and landless people.

That the Maoists would wait patiently for the right opportunity to strike is evident from their documents on protracted people’s war. The document on ‘Urban Perspective’ details how to operate in cities where the ‘enemies’ are in full control. “In such a situation, where enemy is stronger, we cannot have a short-term approach of direct confrontation in order to achieve quick results,” the document says.

It further addes that the cadres should “avoid engaging the enemy” and that “we should act chiefly on the defensive.” The aim of the initial phase of people’s war, it said, would be protecting, preserving, consolidating and expanding the party forces.

It also calls for forming legal and open mass organisations and to have secret party cells working underground. The document asks the cadres to actively engage in festivals like Durga Puja and sneak into sports clubs and gymnasiums.

How far the Maoists have penetrated into the Kerala society is yet to be acsertained. There are many who believe that the presence of the Maoists in Kerala is only negligible and is blown out of proportion by the media and the police.

They believe that innumerable splits in the movement have made it only a symbolic presence. Lack of leaders have incapacitated the activities of CPI (Maoists), which is now dependent on squads from Andhra Pradesh for carrying out the activities. Many of those who led the movement have now disowned it.

But the police are not taking any chances. They arrested P Govindan Kutty, the editor of People’s March, the unofficial organ of the CPI (Maoists) and raided its office.“Globalisation has made the lives of the people all over the country miserable and there are revolts from various corners. Maoists are offering resistannce at some places. But the government is raising the Maoist bogey to suppress all mass agitations,” says K N Ramachandran, general secretary of the CPI-ML (Kanu Sanyal) group.

Ramachandran’s reading is that the Maoists do not have the mass base without which no revolution is possible. And their activities amount to anarchism. “The Maoists have their base mainly among the adivasis. But Kerala is not Dandakaranya. What is needed now is a militant mass movement,” he says.

M N Ravunni, the general convener of Poraattom, believes that mass base alone would not suffice. “The CPM and the CPI have the mass base which does not serve any purpose. We need to revolutionise the masses.” Ravunni challenges the contention that people’s war is not possible in Kerala. “It is being tried even in USA. Then why Kerala should be an exception?”

Earlier ‘actions’ of the Naxalites in Kerala were devoid of any purpose. “Actions like attacking police stations were not linked to the Maoist military line. But now the Maoists have a clearer idea,” he says.

CPI-ML (Naxalbari) has some difference of opinion with CPI (Maoists). “But we have a friendly relationship. We want a principled unity of all revoutionaries in India and some moves in this regard is taking place at national and international level.

Both CPI (Maoists) and CPI-ML (Naxalbari) are the members of Revolutionary International Movement (RIM) and Co-ordination Committee of Maoist Parties and Organisation of South Asia (CCOMPOSA)

T’PURAM: The Maoists who have grown into an army of over 15,000, with sophisticated weapons smuggled illegally from neighbouring states like Nepal, have become a major threat to the country, particularly in and around Jharkhand where the system of law and order is yet to mature, according to Union Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar.

In an exclusive interview to this website’s newspaper here on Saturday, the high-profile IAS officer from Kerala said his focus would now be on the North-East where the infiltration of Maoists was increasing day by day.

His observations gain importance against the background of the violence in Nandigram where organised Maoist activism challenged existing government institutions.

Chandrasekhar was the first Union Cabinet Secretary to visit the Naxal-prone areas in Jharkhand and moot a development initiative to counter the menace instead of using force.

I am a woman in my eighties. When we were young, people were inspired by the examples of karmayogis who were patriotic, motivated by ideals of service, wise and virtuous. We considered ourselves blessed if we could follow in their footsteps.

I had so far been a silent spectator to the injustice and violence that pervades our free democracy today, but only because I was personally untouched by it. But now, as an aged mother, and outraged by the blows of injustice, I wish to break my silence. Inconsolable in my pain at the age of eighty-one years, I now wish to make a humble appeal to the people of free, democratic India.

As perhaps many of you are aware, my son Dr. Binayak Sen is today held in jail, a victim of extreme injustice. At the age of four years, he was troubled by questions of injustice: why didn’t the boy who helped us at home not eat with us? Why did he have to eat alone on the kitchen floor? Why couldn’t he join him at meal times?

When he graduated with his first medical degree with distinction at the age of twenty two from the Christian Medical College in Vellore, he refused to heed his father’s wish for him to go to England to study for the MRCP. Whatever knowledge he needed to practice medicine in his own country, he insisted, he could acquire right here. He was subsequently awarded the M.D. in paediatrics from Vellore, and then joined JNU as an assistant professor with a wish to study for a PhD in Public Health. But he could brook no further delay. He left his academic position to take up a position at the TB Research Centre and hospital run by the Friends’ Rural Centre at Hoshangabad (MP). After a couple of years there, he found an opportunity to work among the miners in Chhattisgarh. There he joined the late independent trade unionist Shankar Guha Neogi and devoted himself selflessly to serving the daily wage labourers of the Bhilai factories and the mineworkers and their families at the mines of Dalli Rajhara and Nandini, aiding and organizing the poor and the oppressed untiringly in their daily struggles to rid themselves of their many social ills. It was here, while working with Shankar Guha Neogi’s Chhattisgarh Mines Shramik Sangh, that Dr. Sen set up a health centre run for and by the workers of the area. Within a few years this grew to a 25 bed hospital. Dr. Sen then left this hospital in the care of the workers and a few other doctors who had been inspired by his example to work there, and joined his wife Dr. Ilina Sen in Raipur in starting a NGO called Rupantar. This organization worked in the areas of community health, ecologically sustainable agriculture, helping women become independent, and formal and informal education for children and adults. Work proceeded apace in all areas successfully. When a rice research centre had opened at Bhatagaon, a scientist cited Dr. Sen in one of his works as “Dr. Binayak Sen, a farmer”. Dr. Sen also opened community health centres in the villages of Dhamtari and Bastar districts, devoted to treating patients and training health workers for administering primary health care and raising awareness of their own communities in matters of health. Primary and adult education centres were opened at various villages.

Dr. Sen’s example inspired several other doctors from famous medical institutions like AIIMS to give up lucrative careers and comfortable lifestyles to open similar health centres in Bilaspur. These centres are now running very successfully.

While working with Rupantar at Raipur, Dr. Sen joined the People’s Union of Civil Liberties as an all-India Vice President and Secretary for the state of Chhattisgarh. In the course of his medical work among the poor and the oppressed, which was already occupying all his time, he became aware of the abuses of the state towards the poor adivasis of Bastar district, and protested against the state sponsored Salwa Judum movement that pitted adivasis against one other. The state did not take kindly towards his protestations on behalf of the poor.

When the brother of an aged and ailing prisoner of Raipur Central Jail asked Dr. Sen to visit and treat his brother in prison, Dr. Sen did so with the permission of the jail authorities. The fact that the prisoner was a Naxalite gave the state an opportunity to arrest and imprison Dr. Sen on May 14, 2007 under the state’s Public Security laws. The patriot who had devoted his entire professional life to the untiring service of the poor – a record acknowledged by the Paul Harrison Award bestowed on him by his alma mater – that very person was now in jail charged with being a terrorist waging war against the state.

When the Chhattisgarh High Court denied Dr. Sen his appeal for bail, his wife Dr. Ilina Sen appealed to the Supreme Court. The date for the hearing of the bail petition was fixed for Monday, December 10 2007.

A Bench consisting of a senior and a junior judge was appointed to hear the appeal for bail. The initial junior judge was subsequently replaced by another. On December 8, the Chhattisgarh government invited the senior member of this Bench to Raipur as the chief guest at the inaugural ceremony of a Legal Aid Centre, and extended its hospitality to him till December 9 when the senior judge returned to New Delhi. The very next day, the Bench dismissed Dr. Binayak Sen’s appeal for bail in just thirty-five minutes.

Here, without casting any doubts or aspersions on anyone’s integrity, I humbly wish to pose my question to all the people and revered leaders of free, democratic India: SHOULD I REGARD AS JUSTICE the refusal of bail to one who even as a child was moved by injustice, who having devoted his entire working life selflessly to providing food and health to the poor, who without coveting wealth survived for days on dal, rice and green chillies, who is accustomed to living like the poor, who dedicated his life to serving the people of his country, and who is now arraigned for breach of public security and waging war against the state?

If this is justice, where I should I seek redress against injustice? Should I remain a victim of injustice even at this age?

Does this son of mine – a selfless, wise, virtuous, humble, peace-loving karmayogi, motivated entirely by the ideals of service, and living among the poor – have to spend his days in prison?

My simple question to all compassionate readers of this appeal is: How much longer to that day when Dr. Binayak Sen will receive justice?

I ask this question not just for myself and for my son, but also on behalf of all mothers suffering from the injustice meted out to their children. Is justice so elusive in our free, democratic country?

Hyderabad, Dec. 30: The cyber duel between the police and the Maoists has turned into a cat and mouse game. Every time the police gets a website or a blog closed, Maoist sympathisers set up another one and continue as before. The cyber catch-me-if-you-can hotted up last week after the police got Peoples March, the most popular pro-Maoist site, blocked through Central agencies. Its editor Govindan Kutty was arrested in Kerala.

The website used to carry interviews with top Maoist leaders including Ganapati and spokesperson Azad. It was blocked an year ago but emerged again and was blocked last week. The Special Intelligence Branch says Peoples March and other websites act as communication link between the underground cadres and sympathisers.

The service provider has left a message stating that the action was taken for violation of programme policies. Following this, however, Maoist sympathisers set up maoistmovementinindia.com. The new site carried a warning to the police to release Kutty or he would go on a hunger strike. A senior police official said, “Maoists are using the internet to propagate their ideology. The network is big.” The Maoists are under pressure in the AP with the police evicting them from most of their bases. The internet offers a safe way to get the Maoist message across.

“Several Maoist sympathisers from AP are writing columns using pennames,” the official said. State police suspects that Maoist leaders who are in hiding in Andhra Pradesh are frequently visiting Kerala, where most of the pro-Maoist bloggers are based. Sources pointed out that Maoist leader Raji Reddy was picked up in Kerala earlier this month. Following this, the Revolutionary People’s Front complained to the Kerala government which resulted in the police announcing Raji Reddy’s arrest.

Pointing out to the close links, police noted that the AP Revolutionary Writers Association had condemned the arrest of Kutty of Peoples March. Sources in the police said that the bloggers have close links with Maoist sympathisers and this has been detected by sniffer software. Resistance India.blogsot.com, a Mao-ist blog, was hacked in August, and the role of the law enforcing agencies is suspected. Following this, the Maoist sympathisers created maoistresitance.blogspot.com. Police has also blocked Naxal revolution.blogspot but expect another blog to replace it. From the police side, www.naxalwatch.blogspot.com, an anti-Maoist website supported by AP-based police, is a popular anti-Naxal blogspot

More than 200 policemen lost their lives fighting Maoists in central India’s killing fields this year. The number of Naxalites they killed was a little above half this figure, according to official records.

The year 2007 saw the highest body loss suffered by security forces in many years in the battle against Maoist guerrillas, whom Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called ‘ the single biggest security challenge to the Indian state’.

Singh told a conference of ministers this month that the Naxals – who were consolidating, getting stronger and more confident – had developed the capability in some areas to launch frontal attacks on police forces and establishments.

Official figures complied by the Union home ministry for this conference indicate that 214 policemen lost their lives in the first 11 months this year, up from 133 policemen killed during the same period last year and 105 killed in 2003. The number of naxals killed had, however, declined from last year’s 239 in 2006 and 216 in 2003, to 129 this year.

The union home ministry has explained the larger number of deaths to better coordinated attacks by the Maoists who have access to enhanced fire power, a militaristic strategy and an enviable ability to analyse adverse situation and devise strategies for counter them.

Vishwa Ranjan, director general of police of Chhattisgarh, where 181 policemen were killed this year, attributed the higher casualties to the series of operations undertaken by the security forces.

“We are trying to enter areas dominated by them… it is natural that the force entering an area held by the other side would have to take a heavier toll,” he said, pointing out that the casualties would increase, on both sides, as security forces push their way in.

But the sacrifice, he emphasised, was not in vain. “We reported 66 casualties among naxals as we had to go by the body count. But their literature seized recently indicates they loss about 180 people in the operations,” he said.